In the dead of night...

[Henry Lordings Jr.]

"2:30 A.M.!..." Henry muttered to himself as he looked down at the golden pocket watch in his hand as he paused for a moment in the course of his rounds one moonlit night. "There's no way it's already 2:30..."

He held the watch up to his ear to check that the mechanics sounded normal, and then examined it more closely in the moonlight flooding through the high third floor corridor window next to which he had stopped. After a moment's tinkering, he was satisfied that it was, indeed, half past two, and that he had already been on the patrol for three of his six hours that night.

He would get the opportunity to catch up on his sleep, of course, as it was now two and a half hours into Saturday, and he had nothing in particular to do for the rest of the day, as all of his homework these days was getting done the afternoon it was assigned. His prefect duties were equally scarce on time consumption, to his very great surprise. He had absolutely no problem getting everything he needed to get done...well...done, and, where time was concerned, he managed not to have to spend every waking moment devoting himself to prefects duties and N.E.W.T. studies.

He peered out of the window onto the grounds thirty feet below, looking for any sign of disturbance in the still of the night, but all was quiet, and he continued on his rounds, or, at least, he was about to if it hadn't been for a sudden noise behind him at the end of the corridor. In a flash, he drew his wand and spun on the spot, the wand-tip igniting with dazzling light in the moonlit corridor. The beam illuminated the end of the corridor, though it revealed nothing that could have made the noise...

"Homenum Revelio." he muttered, though to no effect.

He continued to stare down the corridor for a few moments before he felt something brush up against his leg. He peered down and saw a pitch black cat with glowing yellow eyes peering right back up at him. For a moment they just stared at each other, and then he stooped down and scratched the cat's neck a bit before saying...

"You need to be back in your common room like everyone else. Go on."

He gave the cat a slight push, which sent it on it's way back around the corner it had come from, though it gave him one last searching look before whipping around the corner and out of sight.

He stood there looking after it for a moment, and then stuck his wand back into it's holster under his left arm and turned to walk down the corridor in the opposite direction, only to find himself face to face with a person standing there behind him. He jumped back nearly half a foot, uttering a yelp of utter surprise, and narrowly avoided falling on his behind in the process. It didn't take him long to realize who it was, though he still had to perch on the windowsill for a moment and clutch his chest to calm his suddenly racing heart.

"My god, Tianne, you scared the hell out of me!" he said.

(Closed-Tianne)

[Tianne Webster-Barrett]

"The only that that was scarier to the boy than the powerful play that his father always held was being left alone in the darkness. In the darkness, there was no safety, no certainty, anything could be lurking just around the bend, or just feet away from you. He felt as if his breathing was weighing him down, opening him up as a target, ready and waiting. Timidly, the boy stood up, and, taking a few steps into the darkness was greeted with a sound of something that he really didn't want to hear; breathing."

Tianne shivered as she read the last sentence, it probably wasn't the best book to read in the dark of knight, sitting on a chair in the middle of a room that was dimly lighted only by a candle and Tianne's wand. As much as she trusted the whole of Hogwarts, it was creepy being the only one in the room, even with the tool of a magical wand.

Sitting up from the laid back position that she had slowly but definitely sunken in to, Tianne stretched and thrust her book back into her bag. Reading just that paragraph had creeped Tianne out, there was no way that she was going to try for another, or a chapter. That was just... wrong. Not tonight, maybe during the daytime.

The girl eagerly rummaged through her bag, in search of something that could be valued as highly as reading, something that Tianne, or any other person for that matter, could live without. Food. The girl had stocked up on sandwiches for her lovely patrol, the nighttime duty that everybody tried to get out of. It went against their body clock, it did.

The girl unwrapped her sandwich, and, before taking a bite, smelt it, all the flavors and aromas that it gave off. It smelled like a salad sandwich, with lettuce, tomato, ham, cheese and the distinct smell of cucumber. It wasn't her favourite meal in the world, but it was pretty good considering it was made by the elves, and everybody knew that everything and anything that they made was amazing.

But the satisfaction of having a late night snack was lost a little, for the girl was sure she could hear footsteps, whether they were approaching or leaving, she wasn't sure, but she knew what she had to do. That was the worst part of the job, she was forced to give out punishments, however minor they were. "Oh, bum." Tianne said, slapping the top of her knee, taking another rather large bite out of her sandwich. Lifting her bag up onto her shoulder, Tianne took a few steps towards the sound, and basically tuned out in the process.

"My god, Tianne, you scared the hell out of me!"

Now that bought her attention back to Earth. It took her a moment to realise who it was exactly that she was face to face with, so long in fact, that she forgot about the food in her mouth. "Henry?" She said, although admittedly it came out a little pear shaped, sounding more like 'Hebby'.

[Henry Lordings Jr.]

Henry's heart continued to hammer for a few more moments as he tried to steady himself, already inwardly cursing his own flight to fright, as it were. He knew a few people who might scoff at his being scared in such a manor, however, he defied them to avoid jumping a foot after turning in a dark corridor to find themselves nose and nose with a living person.

He cast up the corridor towards the corner around which the cat had vanished for a moment before turning his full consideration toward Tianne once more. He opened his mouth to say something, though found himself at a loss for words, and so simply shook his head and considered the stone corridor floor, still clutching his chest, though much looser now. After a moment, he back up at Tianne, and then said, in a somewhat constricted voice.

"So...How are you this evenin...uh...morning?"

Though these words were spoken in a tone which was cheery, and in every way not proportionate to the situation at hand...

[Tianne Webster-Barrett]

Tianne couldn't help but laugh at the situation that had unfolded. Of all people that she was to run into, Henry was one of the last, even though he shared the role as student leader. The girl had no idea that he had gotten the dreaded night patrol, and it was something that she knew she wouldn't forget, had she had known. She felt a little slack, considering that he had probably been doing the job that they were meant to be doing, and she had been reading and eating, but he didn't have to know the whole truth, did he?

Chewing the last of her sandwich that was still in her mouth; she had forgotten to chew it upon finding Henry; Tianne grinned happily at the girl. She wasn't going to say anything right at that moment, she was going to wait until she didn't have a mouthful. Anyway, the boy looked like he was going to speak anyways.

The girl tilted her head from side of side, still smiling as she chewed the sandwich. Finally, the girl reached the point that she was ready to rid her mouth of the sandwich, and swallowed. Breathing in and out, Tianne smiled towards the boy, ready to answer whatever he asked.

"I'm good, you could say. A little surprised to see you out here, I didn't know you were patrolling tonight." Tianne replied, following the boys lead by speaking in a bright, cheery tone.

[Henry Lordings Jr.]

He smiled briefly as his feet regained his weight. For a moment, he thought her tone was a bit odd, then he realized that he had been using the exact same tone not moments before. He shook his head once more, and then indicated that they should walk and talk by pointing down the hall in the opposite direction of the corner where the cat had disappeared. After that episode, his attitude regarding the negative luck and values of black cats had changed considerably.

"Well, you know me, I just despise wasting all that perfectly good time sleeping." he said, looking sideways at her as he did so, and, noting the conspicuous presence of a sandwich continued "So, playing hooky on your night's rounds, or do you walk and eat every Graveyard Shift?"

[Tianne Webster-Barrett]

Coughing slightly as she took the last deep breath before her heart rate was back to normal, Tianne offered Henry a smile. She didn't always eat on the job, no, but there was nothing more for her to do. She rarely caught anyone out of bed, on a few occasions she had thought that she did, but it was either just an animal, or a professor. She didn't have the patience for this job anyway, she enjoyed the day shifts because she could greet and mingle with new people. At least with the graveyard shift, Tianne could familiarise herself with the darkness, which was quickly becoming her worst enemy.

Grinning at the boy's comment, Tianne checked her watch. Her shift ended at 5:30am, and so she still had quite a while to go. "Eh, it was just something to cheer me up, you know." She grinned, remembering the paragraph that she had read jsut minutes before. She decided not to tell Henry that, however, as it was sure to seem as if she was slacking off. "Anyway, there's no one around to see. I wouldn't caught if you had your eyes shut." She joked, with a girly chuckle following the comment, as if to make it obvious that it was one of her many jokes.

[Henry Lordings Jr.]

"Well, next time, I'll make sure to keep them closed nice and tight." he said with a chuckle as he peered down a hallway they were passing, his far-sightedness giving him an excellent view of the hall all the way down to the far end. "Speaking of people out after hours," he continued, suddenly remembering last night's little Deja-Vu episode "I caught young Mr. Evans out again last night. He's one of your Ravenclaw first years. He keeps 'Forgetting the password'. It's the third time this month that I've had to remind him that the Ravenclaw entry gives you a riddle."

He peered past Tianne down a hall to their right as they passed it, then shook his head after satisfied there was nobody there, and turned his attention forward once more.

"I've never met someone so forgetful in my life, poor kid." he continued "The door keeps giving him a simple one, you know, but he keeps giving the answer from last time before thinking about it, and having to wait until another somebody comes along to let him in. You wouldn't happen to know anybody who can help him out with that, do you? There's only so many times I can justify letting him off the hook."

[Tianne Webster-Barrett]

"Thank you very much." Tainne said with a grin, folding her arms conclusively, although playfully. The darkness and the night were so much better when you weren't alone, especially when that person was a friend; Tianne was really happy about that. It wasn't a childish fear of the dark, she didn't sleep with a nightlight, it was just being in a large space, with who knows how many spiders and creepycrawlies. It wasn't so much the dark that scared her, but the things that came out in the dark. They were just creepy.

"Again?" Tianne said with a sigh. "I'll see what I can do. I think I know a couple of people that can help." She grinned, remembering back when she was a first year. She didn't have the guts to do that sort of thing, she was the kind that went to bed early, and woke up to her alarm, that never had to run to class, that never had to have words with professors except for being praised. Back when she was a first year, things were different.

"When I was eleven, I wouldn't have dared entered out of my dormitory at night, let alone out of the common room."

[Henry Lordings Jr.]

"Heh..." Henry chuckled "When I was eleven, I was out of my dormitory almost every night...but then, that was when I was living out of a dormitory where the beds were harder than tempered steel."

They rounded a corner into yet another empty corridor and continued on through the semi-darkness of the nighttime castle. They passed through long shafts of light being cast by the moonlight shining through the tall windows set into the outer walls as they walked.

"Barely any movement out recently though," he continued "even the suits of armor and the paintings seem to be keeping unusually still as of late."

He stopped momentarily at every doorway they passed so that he could crack the door open a bit and cast a beam of wand-light around the rooms behind the doors, searching for anyone who might have sought a hiding spot. So far that night, however, he had seen no one in the halls or otherwise except, of course, Tianne, but she had an all access pass to the castle after-hours, just as he did.

[Tianne Webster-Barrett]

"Really? God, I wish that was what I was like." Tianne said, taking a few shorter steps, as she reminisced over her first year at Hogwarts. She had basically been like that until her fourth year, it was Matty Wentworth that brought her out of her shell. She had been a bookworm, if she stayed up late it was to study, if she went out after curfew it was to see her professors, or to get a book that she was dying to read.

She didn't have the same curiosity for exploration as the others did, she had a hunger for knowledge, something that she had fulfilled, but was still not satisfied with. Tianne never really out grew it, no, it still felt awkward with her having an all access pass to the castle; she felt as if she shouldn't be out there.

"What is the Gryffindor common room like? I've always thought that it would be really warm, cosy, something that was admirable." The girl said, responding to the boy's comment about the hard beds. "I have noticed that, actually. Maybe they are scared of us?"

[Henry Lordings Jr.]

He smiled as they passed still more adjacent halls, and looked over at Tianne. He had to admit it was a lot nicer scoping the castle at night when you had someone to talk to; Almost all the tediousness in the deed was diminished.

"It's a nice enough space, I suppose..." he said in response to her question after nodding once in joking agreement with the comment about the stillness about the castle of late. "The beds here at Hogwarts are definitely much improved from those employed at the Salem Magical Institute. I swear, it was like they wanted us to be uncomfortable there; Of course, SMI always was more of a...military type facility where it's operation was concerned. Their view was, the more spartan the environment, the better. I definitely prefer the soft beds, and cushy armchairs of Gryffindor tower to the the hard bunks at SMI."

[Tianne Webster-Barrett]

Now that she had actually found company, someone to talk with, Tianne couldn't believe that she had ever gone the whole shift without seeing another soul in the corridors. When she was alone, admittedly, she dozed off, caught a few chapters, sung to herself, or even ate (much like she had that night), but now, walking with Henry, she found herself not wanting to do any of those things. It wasn't that she didn't trust the boy, no, she trusted him like she trusted her family, he just made her want to talk. He was quite the conversationalist, when it came to it.

Giving a slight chuckle to the boys comment, although she wasn't sure that it was the right place and time for it, Tianne looked at the boy. "Oh, so you went somewhere else before you came here? Why the move?" She asked, surprised at herself for not knowing this before. "You know what I love? I love that I hated the idea of going to boarding school. Like my parents were shipping me away, you know? But I just can't believe that I only have a couple of years left at this place." Tianne said, nostalgia getting the better of her.

[Henry Lordings Jr.]

"Oh, so you went somewhere else before you came here? Why the move?"

"My father works for a rather large company called KevlaCorp.; It's a weapons and armor design and production firm. For the first two years of my magical education, I was going to SMI because we were living in Seattle, and that particular school was the best option. My dad was heading up the R&D department for the company's Seattle branch." said Henry, still peering around for any sign of movement "At the beginning of my third year, dad got a promotion that required us to move to Oxford. We did so, and SMI was no longer convenient; Luckily for me, Hogwarts is."

"You know what I love? I love that I hated the idea of going to boarding school. Like my parents were shipping me away, you know? But I just can't believe that I only have a couple of years left at this place."

"The irony is nothing short of amazing..." said Henry with a chuckle "You ever hear the story of Green eggs and Ham?"